


A question of the right direction

by asparagusmama



Series: Tales of the companions [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: British probationary police officer, Character Study, Gen, Peace, qibla, settling in aboard the TARDIS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-08-23 17:36:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16623413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asparagusmama/pseuds/asparagusmama
Summary: Yaz settles in to life in the TARDIS and looks to re-establish an important part of her life.





	A question of the right direction

It was after two days and three planets full of wonders and aliens and danger that Yaz began to feel the yearn and pull towards the comfort of the familiar ritual. Never more had she wanted to mean the words,  _ Alhumduillah rabbil alameen.  _ She awoke that morning even more determined to get back to the routine.

 

“How do I find the Qibla in here?” she asked shyly from the kitchen door, hair stood on end from another night of troubled sleep.

 

“And good morning to you too, Yaz,” Graham said mildly, from the kitchen table, hands curled around a mug of tea.

 

“Oh. Yeah. Sorry. Morning everyone,” Yaz said, sitting down and reaching for a cup and the pot.

 

“It's a bit stewed. I'll make a fresh pot,” the Doctor said, standing and taking the brown, earthenware, large, pot over to the kettle and tea caddy.

 

“Thanks,” Yaz said, smiling at the Doctor, before looking at her earnestly. “I mean it though. How on Earth do I find the Qibla? No, not on Earth. That's the problem, isn't it?”

 

“Qib what?” Ryan asked sleepily.

 

“Qibla? That's like, the direction of Mecca, isn't it?” Graham checked. “It'll have to be just towards Earth, right Doc? I mean, Mecca's on Earth, right Yaz?”

 

“Oh. The Muslim prayer thingy. Yeah, we did that at primary school in RE,” Ryan said, still half asleep, a beat behind everyone else.

 

Yaz looked at him at smiled. “Yeah, we made a cardboard mosque and did geometric designs, I remember.”

 

“Mine was rubbish,” Ryan muttered, remembering his little child fingers struggling with with pens and paper, and then, meaning to be kind, the teacher had got him making a paper collage mosaic, which had been even worse. Everything made him feel stupid and clumsy back then.

 

“I'm sure it wasn't, Ryan. Besides, we can't all be good at everything, can we? I can't make a soufflé,” the Doctor smiled, turning to Yaz. “I'm sorry Yaz, we're not technically even in the universe,” she explained, turning around from the counter where she had been fiddling with the teapot, leaning back against the counter and pulling a sympathetic face at Yaz and Ryan.

 

“Never mind,” Yaz muttered, feeling embarrassed.

 

“Now look Doc, this is important to Yaz, and you're just being flippant!” Graham chastised gently.

 

“I'm not. I have the greatest respect for your beliefs, Yaz.”

 

“Good!” Yaz responded hotly. “Namaz keeps me calm and focused. I always try to say as many as I can. Not five a day always, not often, and not when I'm a work. But when you get vomit on your shoes and insults hurled at you daily; when you deal with violence and despair; when you find dead old ladies half eaten by their cats coz their neighbours didn't care or lads younger than you dead of hyperthermia or a drugs o-d on the streets coz their family didn't care or have to take dirty, hungry, kids away from their families coz they are too stoned or drunk or mentally ill to look after them, then namaz gives me peace and strength to go on. And I reckon I need that here too. If the Doctor's such a clever Time Lord, she should know how to find Mecca!”

 

“As I said, I have the greatest respect for your beliefs...” the Doctor repeated.

 

“Kinda like meditation?” Ryan asked.

 

“Exactly like that, Ryan, yes,” Yaz agreed, although it wasn't, not really, it was about surrendering the self, not focusing on it, which is what she thought meditation seemed to be about.

 

“Graham tried that,” Ryan went on.

 

Now it was Graham's turn to flush pink. “You know, when I was fighting cancer. I thought it would help.”

 

“I've been trying to meditate for centuries, millennia even,” the Doctor said cheerfully. “The Hermit tried to teach me when I was a little boy. He lived on the mountain behind my family home. But I can't focus. No good at sitting still.”

 

The three humans gave each other little glances across the table.

 

“What?” asked the Doctor.

 

All three humans began to laugh.

 

“Don't laugh. It's true. I'm sometimes better at it. The TARDIS traverses the Vortex, Yaz, built by my own people. It is outside space-time. So best you just pray towards the door. The door will open to the Universe, and the Earth is in the Universe, and Mecca is on Earth. Think of all of the entire universe, all of time and space swirling past the TARDIS door all at once. Including the Ka'ba in Mecca on Earth. Sometimes we step outside that door. Outside that door everything is happening at once, Yaz. Including your Prophet. Right now outside that door Muhammed is in that cave having his dreams and visions. He's also teaching and preaching. He's running away from Mecca and he's coming back triumphant. He's settled at Medina and he's living in peace making wise judgements. So is Abraham too, right now he's building the Ka'ba with his son, Ishmael, he's abandoning him, his mother Hajar is desperately running between the hills for water...”

 

“You know about my religion?” Yaz asked, pleased and surprised, but also wanting to stop the Doctor, suspecting she could go on for quite a while.

 

“Of course. Greatest respect. I said. And I know lots of things. I'm quite clever. I did say so, didn't I?”

 

“All the time, Doc,” Graham chipped in, smiling. The Doctor grinned at him, but went on regardless,

 

“Now, the tea is mashed, who's up for a fresh cup?”

 

“I've not had a cup yet,” Yaz pointed out.

 

Later that day, she worked out the direction of the door from her room and hoped the TARDIS wouldn't move the console room or her bedroom, and arbitrarily decided when was dawn, midday, mid afternoon, dusk, and dark of a day, from her phone and when the prayers times had been back in Sheffield before she had been whisked away across the universe from that lock-up. Then the Doctor did something clever and Time Lord to her phone, so her ap stayed connected and she said her prayers according to the day back in Sheffield, wherever she was. On planets, she just made the Doctor point to the Milky Way, or Earth if they were in her own galaxy.

 

Namaz kept her calm and focused. She wouldn't want to lose that.


End file.
